Welcome to The International Hypnosis Research Institute Web site. Our intention is to support and promote the further worldwide integration of comprehensive evidence-based research and clinical hypnotherapy with mainstream mental health, medicine, and coaching. We do so by disseminating, supporting, and conducting research, providing professional level education, advocating increased level of practitioner competency, and supporting the viability and success of clinical practitioners. Although currently over 80% of our membership is comprised of mental health practitioners, we fully recognize the role, support, involvement, and needs of those in the medical and coaching fields. This site is not intended as a source of medical or psychological advice. -- Tim Brunson, PhD

Alternative healers who've been in classes of mine of late have heard me speak of lighthouses. You might scratch your head and wonder why a CE provider and alternative healer coach, such as myself, is talking to healers about buildings that stay lit all night long for ships in the dark. It's because one important ingredient for therapists to succeed in this economy is to stay lit for all those ships--read, human beings--who are sailing--or more precisely, flailing--around in the dark. There are people running around in circles, running on treadmills like lab rats, and getting mighty tired, stressed, and scared in the process. All that fatigue, tension, and fear gets stored in the muscles of their ravaged bodies. They need to find a steady light to help them through this dark time. You can be that light for them--and if you do, you can thrive even during this difficult economy.

The Encarta World English Dictionary defines lighthouse as "a strategically placed coastal building...with a powerful flashing light, designed to guide sailors or warn them of dangers such as rocks." You are strategically placed wherever you are because there are plenty of people sailing and flailing around you. If you are running an alternative healing business, then you can emit, if you choose to, a powerful flashing light. This is where spirituality comes in handy for you; it's a chance to have the good vibrations that the Beach Boys (most of them meditators and a couple of them meditation teachers) sang so beautifully about in the mid-60s, but applies just as much nearly half a century later. It's funny how that is about the truth.

People come to certain kinds of bodyworkers and energy healers, in part, because of those vibes; many see the hour of silence, beyond words on tables, as their version of a spiritual experience. As for the rocks, in the dictionary definition... they're mighty dangerous especially when lodged within human bodies and psyches. That, again, is why the people in your community need you.

Because clients are coming to see you to be rid of the rocks in their necks, shoulders, and subconscious mind, as well as for the quasi spiritual experience they might have on your table or in your office, suffice it to say that when they start complaining about how tough it is in this economy, don't stand there and agree with them and engage them about such stresses. They're there to get rid of their stresses, so don't reinforce them with your speech. It would be wiser to say something along the lines of, "I understand; now just relax as this will be better."

My advice to you, then, is simple: don't worry so much about making the rent on your office or the mortgage on your house. Instead, focus on being that "still point in the turning world" that T.S. Eliot wrote about. Be that shining lighthouse for those scared in the dark around you. That can bring in more than enough clients to more than pay for your rent or your mortgage, to say nothing of your car payment, your car and health insurance premiums, and your kids' college educations funds.